Loading...

Clarity

Mark Beckett Walmsley

London

Mark Walmsley is a marketing consultant with over 20 years' international experience in brand proposition and positioning, digital and traditional marketing and business development. Creator of the PARELA Smart Marketing System and Workshops (www.parela.co.uk)

Answers

Hi. Great idea. Forget social and forget search. Middle-aged women won't search or share this. I found the same thing with an IVF test product I have worked on for a California-based company. My advice would be to list out all the available marketing channels and tactics open to you and eliminate those you a) can't afford, b) are not direct enough or c) require sharing P2P. My guess is that you'll find that your best ROI welcome from advertising on related websites. Good luck. Happy to help further. Mark

Hi. Mark Walmsley here, in England. A great idea and similar to an initiative I am conducting locally here. My experience and instinct is that most of the people who need help will not be smart phone users. Happy to chat over Skype for free if you want to brainstorm a solution. Mark

Hi. Lead generation through automated content marketing, client development through satisfaction surveys and precision networking using LinkedIn for the larger companies. Happy to help further. Good luck. Mark

Use my Channel Elimination Technique. List all of the marketing channels and tactics you could use. Eliminate those that you A) Can't afford and B) Aren't direct enough. Find local non-competing businesses trying to reach a similar demographic and ask them what works for them. Happy to help further. Mark

Decide on an annual theme that tracks back to your product or service. Produce 4 quarterly white papers (which require registration to download), promote these using monthly blog post extracts and promote those with weekly tweets and status updates. Happy to advise further. Good luck.

I've been in a similar situation in the past and the single biggest challenge I found was that reselling a 3rd party service was not a core business development priority for the partner agency.

To overcome this I'd advise that you find the no-brainer proposition that makes it one.

A few years back a British insurance company wanted to offer to offer a new policy to insure your set of golf clubs for £35 per annum.

On the face of it, this was a non-starter. Few sets of golf clubs are worth more than £35 and those that are, are typically covered or itemised on existing home contents insurance policies.

The project was a huge success because the no-brainer proposition was identified and a partnership marketing approach adopted.

In return for the £35, the policyholder received the following free benefits:

6 Nike golf balls
A Calloway cap
A free round of golf at any DeVere club
4x two for one vouchers to use at most courses

The perceived value of these free benefits was over £200.

The benefits were all obtained free of charge.

Nike and Calloway were happy to do a sampling exercise to their target market. very few people play gold lone, so the vouchers were, at worse, cost neutral.

So, find partners who also want to reach the agencies you are targetting woth non-competing products or services. (e.g. trade magazine subscriptions) and create a "welcome bundle" of benefits that cost you little or nothing.

Find a remuneration model that is tied to usage. If you don't show this confidence then a prospective partner won't either.

I have my own a framework called APELA (Awareness, Perception, Engagement, Loyalty and Advocacy). I'd be happy to provide you with more over a call and follow up with a summary of our call with recommendations.

Probably a bit late now, but this is a very risky business with all your eggs in one basket.

I would not consider promoting such an event unless and until your costs are covered regardless of the number of tickets you sell. That can be achieved better by sponsorship than investment in my view.

However, a safer option is to crowdsource subscription.

Describe the event, find or create a community to get behind it. Set a target amount, after wish you will confirm the event. Allow people to pay for tickets in advance at discounted rates. Put the funds in Escrow. Tell people that, if you fail to reach the "Go" target, they will have their money returned.

Yes. There is no such thing as a full-service agency. No agency could afford to employ all of the skills they may need when serving a client.

I once hired an animation studio to create a 3D stereoscopic mode of action video for a healthcare client. Never used them since but they were essential at the time and the best in the world at doing it.

Reviews

Mark's great to work with. I've developed/delivered joint pitches with him on a number of occasions: he turns round very creative, workable ideas in next to no time and is incredibly well informed/brings some great experience to bear.

I have known Mark for almost four years, and wish it had been longer, and that during this time we could have spent more time working together. For those of us working within health services, I think it is rare to come across someone whose ideas and thinking are always worth listening too, but in my experience Mark's thinking is always worth paying close attention to. Whether in relation too his understanding of the digital world and social media, or his empathetic attunement to patient experience, there is never a wasted word. The freshness and clarity of his ideas have repeatedly stopped me in my tracks, and critically afforded a reappraisal of what I was hoping to achieve; wastage of time and resources is minimised, whilst a sharper focus for the work comes into view. Whatever the project, he is able to allow the spirit of the work to flourish, and not be drowned in current fashion or policy. My work in e-Mental Health has been so usefully reshaped thanks to his support, many will reap the benefits. It is hard to capture to how this mixture of imaginative thinking and real world pragmatism helps a project move forward, successfully, but if you want a project or your work to take a leap forward in terms of quality and effectiveness, I can think of few others that can help as Mark does.

I had great pleasure of having Mark as my career advisor and mentor.
Being inspired by his invaluable experience, support and insights into multi-channel marketing, I use Mark's advice at work.

A great energy in his voice that has a persuasive communicative power makes him an outstanding public speaker. Very personable, creative and infectiously passionate about his industry, Mark is a high calibre professional to aspire to.

Mark and the Escape Committee are the absolute authority in delivering outstanding, well though-out web design that can win over the entire organization, not just whomever driving the project. This proved absolutely invaluable when delivering a website for a big organization that consists of separate divisions. They've also got research to backup design decisions, which makes all the difference!!

Whenever I hear about yet another new business deal, or another new important connection made, I always say that I want to be just like Mark. In ten years time, I hasten to add, but most definitely wearing the same shoes and enjoying the same phenomenal success rate in business.

Mark is a social network fanatic. He is a rare breed in that he is someone who actually understands how it works! He is able to live, breathe and eat digital media and social networking. I am not sure how he does it - but it works fantastically well and he is able to explain how to use it for marketing campaigns clearly and succinctly.